Clarification on the Notepad++ Trademark Issue

2026-05-05

The trademark infringement issue has now been resolved. The author of the website and project in question has removed all uses of the Notepad++ trademark from his product, website, and related materials. The unauthorized references have been taken down, and the trademark infringement is no longer ongoing.

Here is an example of the kind of emails I’ve being recieving from some users over the past 3 days:

I think some points need to be clarified.

It’s something that I’ve alrady said several times on GitHub, but it’s worth repeating: I’m genuinely happy to see Mac (or any other OS) users benefit from Notepad++ code base. Ports & forks are absolutely not a problem - Notepad++ is released undre GPL, one of the strongest license for protecting users’ freedom.

However, endorsing a project - meaning authorizing the use of the “Notepad++” trakmark - is a completely different matter. The worse case scenario is that a package distributed under Notepad++ name could contain a backdoor or malware. Even if that never happens, I cannot take responsibility for the long term maintenance of port or fork that I do not manage. Any critical issues, crashes or security vulnerabilities in that external project could damage the reputation of Notepad++ itself.

For these reasons, ports & forks are welcome, but they cannot be endorsed. I hope this makes the points clearer.

– Don Ho